Four junior surfers from Sligo have been selected for the Irish surfing team that will compete at the European surfing competition in Portugal next week. The Eurosurf Junior 2024 surf championships will take place at Santa Cruz in Portugal from the 18^th to 26^th July.  All surfers are members of the Donegal Bay Boardriders Surf Club and include Páraic McSharry from Streedagh and Rory Murphy from Cliffoney who will compete in the U16 boys category, while Oscar Choo from Strandhill and Tom Murphy from Cliffoney will compete in the U18 boys category. They will be travelling with Irish Surfing on a full 12 surfer panel consisting of 6 male and 6 female athletes from around Ireland. RTE are also traveling with the team to document the journey of the national team. This will be used in the making of an exciting 8 part documentary that follows the path of surfers who have been competing throughout the year across the Irish Surfing Junior Tour with the hope of being selected for the Irish team to compete at Euro Surf but also to become Irish National Champions at the year end.

The selection process for the Irish junior surf team was managed by Irish Surfing and took place over three separate surf competition events. The first event took place in Tullan in April while the next two events occurred at Trá Bhuí in May. The best two results for each surfer were used to aggregate points and the top three in each category were then selected. A separate junior tour competition also took place in Strandhill on 6^th July where all four boys featured in the top three in each category. Gavin McCrea, technical director and team manager with Irish Surfing congratulated all the athletes selected for the team and commented that “the standard of surfing in Ireland is getting better year on year and we look forward to a strong performance at this year’s Eurosurf competition. Thanks also to our team sponsors Grown clothing and Oakley and to all our supporters.”

While Irish Surfing help fund the team, some contribution per athlete was required given the limited national funding available.  Eamon Murphy, chair of the Donegal Bay Boardriders surf club highlighted that the Sligo County Council provided some funding towards the World junior surfing championships last year and have also helped with funding for the Sligo surfers attending the Eurosurf competition and “we would like to take this opportunity to thank Sligo County Council for their financial support which is greatly appreciated. Special thanks also the Councillor Marie Casserly for assisting in this support.” Councillor Casserly added that “this is a great opportunity for the Irish team but also fantastic for Sligo to feature so prominently. We have some of the very best beaches for surfing in the north west and I wish the competitors the best of luck and know they will do Sligo proud.”

While this sport has been added to the Olympics, surfing is a very important and growing area of tourism in Ireland and is often used to promote the northwest region. With the opening of the new National Surf Centre at Strandhill Sligo, the role of surfing tourism in Sligo has become more important and recognisable, and a European stage such as the European Championships serve to consolidate Ireland as a legitimate and viable surf destination. This event will be live streamed to multiple countries who have athletes participating. For more information on the sport of surfing in Ireland and clubs near you, see www.irishsurfing.ie.